pointless australian comic related travel story

I went cold turkey on the whole comics thing while i was away. On my first day in London i did spot 4 comic shops, which i believe was more than Fraser had found in his 2 weeks in London but i digress.
I had arranged to meet Scott on a particular street corner, at a prearranged time. I had never met Scott before but had seen photos, where he usually wore a hat or sunglass of some description. Subsequently my powers of recognition were low; skinny brown haired hipster. I had to keep an eye out for someone who had a certian level of scottnesshotness. (it didn't help that he was late) So for 15 minutes there was a lot of internal "not him, too fat, too short, scott doesn't seem like a cargo pant wearer, no, no, too black, too asian, too tall, too much wheelchair, too much oestrogen " until a dumpy dwarf with a ratty afro and an equally dorky friend came up and asked "Are you Mark?", suprised i replied "yeah, how's it going?"
"Cool man, nice meeting you!"
"yeah, me too"
"We've been looking for a drummer for a really long time"
"cool, huh, what??!! You're Not scott are you?"
"No"
"I think I'm the wrong Mark then"
"oh wow"
"good luck on the drummer search"
"Hehe yeah"
Then it was back to the wait wait wait. He finally turned up, meal was eaten, pints were had while drummer mark probably waited on the corner.

Anyway, in PARIS, i did want to check out a BD shop, just to see if graphic novels were as big as people say they are in France. I also had received a request from Cool hand Weber for a "Spirou" book. After two days, I ran into Album, two decent sized stores on opposite corners of an intersection, near St Severin; one store dealt in french BD and the other in english comics. I entered and was geniuly suprised at the range of stuff; the BD format doesn't really thrill me (thin hardcovers) but the range was quite exciting. After a bit of a wander (they seem to arrange books by publisher - grrr) I made sure i looked as lost as possible so someone would ask if i needed help, then i could stammer some french, they would then take pity on me and speak english and all would end well (this was the standard game plan, for me anyway, emma being young and pretty could get away with "English? ENG-lish?"). A pretty female asked if I was alright and i felt all giddy - oh beautiful french comic shop girl - she helped me with "spirou" but i got curious.
"Avay-vooo dez roman p-argh Kollen Willsun?" (Google translate won't help - 'do you have any books by Colin Wilson?')
Blank look
"Kollen Willsun?"
Her english was better than my french, but still
"rite naim don"
I knew Colin had done "Young Bluberry" but had no idea what 'young' was in french, i had to stop myself from saying "petite blueberry" so I took at stab with
"artiste - blueberry"
This got a puzzled look and a "ahhh - Mobieus?"
"No - Kollen Willsun" I wrote down Colin Wilson and passed her the paper
"Ahhh, Ko'lynne Whil'sohn" she exclaimed in recognition
She then tapped away on her computer
"I'm soree we do not have anything by this artist"

All disappointing news should be told by pretty french girls, it lessens the blow. So with a 'merci' i was out with the huge but cheap Spirou book. Later i went into Virgin looking for French hip hop (i love french hip hop), they also had a huge BD range and a couple of stores near Notre Dame made me weep wishing that level of comic goodness was the norm and not the exception in Australia.